Said El Mala has enjoyed a sensational first half of the 2025/26 season with FC Köln, having already tallied six goals and three assists from a total of seventeen appearances across all competitions. Parallels
have already been drawn to Bayern Munich’s Lennart Karl, who has also been thoroughly impressive so far this season for the Bundesliga champions, and there’s also been shouts for both of them to get callups to the German national team by Julian Nagelsmann ahead of this summer’s World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
With the way El Mala carries the ball at his feet, there is a fearlessness in his style of play that’s reminiscent of top wingers in previous decades of football. Some would more than likely deem this fearless style as far more exciting than the current tendencies for wingers to play more conservatively, recycle possession, and spend the majority of their time playing square and/or backwards passes.
“No crowd of opponents was too big for him: he just marched right in,” is what El Mala claimed his previous manager Andreas Osterhaus (at Linner SV) said about him in a recent interview with 11Freunde magazine (Tz). The same could be said about Bayern’s Karl or Jamal Musiala — all three players seem to have the innate ability to work their way out of tight situations and create something out of nothing.
“I take the ball and just start running. There is no defender in the Bundesliga who makes me think: I can’t get past him,” Köln’s 19-year-old phenom explained. However, El Mala’s brother Malek was also present for the magazine interview and specifically asked his brother about Bayern center back Dayot Upamecano, who El Mala faced earlier in the season in the DFB-Pokal round of 16 clash that Bayern won. He’ll also have the chance to face him later this month, as Köln take on Bayern in the second match of the rückrunde.
“Okay, that was pretty extreme,” Said responded when his brother brought up the French center back that has been a solid performer for the German Rekordmeister so far this season. Ironically enough, during that match El Mala was booked early on for a challenge on Upamecano, but that was far from Köln’s biggest worry on the night as they fell 4-1 to Vincent Kompany’s side.
